“Oh, you’re right. That wouldn’t be fair. Because compared to the two of you, I’m a goddamn genius.”

As she put her hands on her hips and glared at him, he wondered what in the hell else was he going to say to her? He didn’t want to spout the real truth—which had everything to do with the fact that he could still remember what her soft skin felt like … could still picture how small her ankle had been compared to his palm … could imagine so many things he wanted to do to her, absolutely none of which involved violence of any kind.

Absolutely all of which included contact with his fingertips, his lips … his tongue.

Craeg crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to fight you.”

“So if I swing at you, you’re going to do nothing.”

He cocked a brow. “I’m not worried about getting knocked out.”

“Oh, really.”

“No. Your lesser endurance aside, you’re not going—”

The next thing that came out of his mouth was a high-pitched scream that left everyone in the gym ripping around to see what the hell had happened.

And he might have told them—but he was too busy covering his nuts with both hands and bending at the waist.

She had kneed him in the groin.

In the groin. With her knee.

“What the fuck!” he sputtered. “Why did you do that?”

She seemed as surprised as everyone else. But she recovered fast—by clamping a hold on either side of his head, bringing up that knee again, and nailing him so hard in the face, he saw more stars than a human Christmas tree had lights.

As he let out another howl and lurched off balance, she locked both of her hands together, extended her arms, and swung around in a tight circle like she was throwing a discus—catching him in the temple with enough force to knock his legs right out from under him.

Boom! Down he went to the blue mats.

Everyone came running as she stood over him, braced for whatever came at her—while he made out with the floor.

Shoving his palms into the mats, he hefted his upper body to the vertical and looked at her. “You really want me to do this.”

“You haven’t done anything yet,” somebody cracked.

“Tell me,” another one chimed in. “Do you take a piss sitting down?”

“He does now,” came a reply.

Paradise just tracked every move he made, each twitch and breath and shift of his eyes. But she had no idea what she was doing. He could tell by the way her hands were trembling, and the fact that her ribs were pumping way too hard for the physical activity she’d just done.

She was also ever so slightly aroused.

Okay, that was straight-up trouble. The scent of her sex triggered the very male part of him—and made him want her to run just so he could chase her and catch her and get her underneath him to take her hard. He wanted her nails scratching his back as she came … and her fangs bared right before she took a vein at his throat.

The lust was so strong, he could have fucked her even if there were people watching—and as if she recognized the change in him, she took a step back.

And then suddenly no one was laughing or joking at him anymore.

Butch stepped in between them. “Easy, there, big guy. How about you come at me?”

The Brother sank down into a fighting stance, his fists up in front of his chest, his eyes narrowed.

But Craeg wasn’t interested in the male. He looked around those mammoth shoulders to Paradise, who was staring at him with an inscrutable expression on her face.

This time, when a punch came at him, Craeg went into full fight mode, something that had not happened with Peyton. With the other trainee, he had given about sixty percent of what he had, holding some of his strength back because he had been afraid of killing the piece of shit, or doing permanent damage—and thereby getting booted from the program. Now? The knife-edge of his arousal cut through all restraint as he went into the hand-to-hand battle, ducking, throwing a fist of his own, ducking again, jabbing. The Brother was viciously quick, mercilessly powerful, eminently trained.

Not like Peyton at all.

And as the fight wore on, as they traded kicks and dodges, grabs and grapples, more people came over and stood around, until there was a crowd of ten, fifteen … twenty in the gym.

It was about fifteen minutes in when the daggers got tossed at them.

The two razor-sharp, black-handled, silver-bladed knives flew through the air from out of nowhere. Butch caught one on the fly. Craeg caught the other. And then they were circling, searching for a way past defenses, weaving the weapons back and forth—lunging, retreating, the stakes so much higher.

Butch wasn’t breathing heavily at all. Craeg, on the other hand, was panting like a motherfucker—sweating like one, too.

First blood was drawn when Craeg misjudged one arc by a millimeter and got his cheek cut open. When he miscalled another, he started leaking at the shoulder. Mistaking a third, he got his thigh sliced.

It was then that he realized the Brother was giving him just sixty percent of what the male was capable of: The precision of the cuts told Craeg that his opponent knew more than he did, was stronger than he was, and was prepared to nick his way to a victory based on incremental blood loss.

But Craeg wasn’t going to give up. Not yet, at any rate. Not until he couldn’t stand, couldn’t see, couldn’t move.

His will would accept nothing less.

Paradise recognized immediately that this fight was a totally different thing than that mad, sloppy scramble that had rolled out into the corridor earlier. In fact, back with Peyton, Craeg had been reining himself in for some reason; he was no longer. His coordination as he faced off against Butch with his fists, and then—oh, God, those daggers—told her, and everybody else in the gym, that he was an incredible fighter, capable of great strength, balance, flexibility, and power.